Anyone know of a red dot magnifier with a reticle?

While planning the optics setup for my soon-to-be purchased AR, I was thinking how I like a red dot with magnifier setup, but don't like how when shooting with the magnifier, you have very little in your sight picture that would be helpful with ranging or compensating for bullet drop. Sure the red dot is a certain number of MOA wide, but the edges are often indistinct and you get some "bloom."

I was thinking what a great setup it would be to have a red dot with a flip-to-side magnifier that contained a ranging or BDC reticle, ideally along the lines of an ACOG reticle, but would work fine with a mil, MOA, or even a plain old duplex reticle. The dot would then just take the place of the illuminated center aiming point, like in an illuminated scope reticle. Ideally it would need to be a magnifier that could be adjusted, so that the reticle lines up with the dot. But I was just wondering whether anyone makes a magnifier with a reticle.

I have seen the old Hensoldt rocket launcher sights that people rig up as magnifiers... that is along the lines of what I am talking about, but of course that reticle is for ranging tanks rather than man-sized targets, and wouldn't be too useful.

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benzy2

March 7, 2012, 02:53 PM

The closest I've heard about is low magnification optic, say 1-4x or so, that uses an illuminated horseshoe type reticle that is in the FFP. When you dial down to 1x it looks like a dot and when you dial up to the higher magnification side you see the horseshoe defined as well as any has marks below or beside it. I cannot for the life of me remember who makes them, but Trijicon licenses the design as well in some of their optics.

Z-Michigan

March 7, 2012, 03:15 PM

Yeah, check out the 1-4x scopes with a ballistic reticle. The Burris XTR is one good example, the Weaver 1-5x24 Tactical "CIRT" another.

Alternatively you can run a fixed or variable magnifying optic (like a 3-9x) with a separate red dot angled off 45 degrees to the side.

benEzra

March 7, 2012, 03:15 PM

The problem is that the rifle is sighted in on the optic's dot, not the magnifier, so a reticle on the magnifier would not hold zero.

One thing that might do what you want is to use an Eotech 557 (which has a BDC reticle) in front of a conventional magnifier, like so:

Yeah, I actually have a 1-4x with a BDC reticle (a Leatherwood CMR), and while it is pretty quick on 1x, it is still no red dot; and like any scope, it has eye relief and parallax issues, which make it not quite as good for improvised positions and such.

Also I have seen and shot with the EOTechs with the BDC dots, but they are still not much help with ranging. I really don't need as much help with my hold-overs as I do with ranging. I know my hold overs pretty well and can do fine with a standard dot as long as I know how far away the target is.

As for the issue of the magnifier not having the same zero as the scope, there are magnifiers on the market that have little turrets and are zeroable, so you can center them on the red dot's FOV... if the magnifier had a reticle, you could do the same thing.

Hell, I wouldn't even necessarily need a reticle with an aiming point. I would be fine with something like the ranging brackets in this U.S.O. SN-12R, off in the corner of the FOV, without the crosshairs or anything:
http://i654.photobucket.com/albums/uu269/ddindetroit/DSC07929.jpg

benzy2

March 7, 2012, 10:26 PM

Can you simply use a laser range finder? It seems to me that if you have time to do the math on the distance/size of your target that you probably have the time to pull out the range finder and know for certain.

henschman

March 8, 2012, 01:06 AM

Seeing which bracket or stadia line in your reticle is closest to the target's width is a lot quicker than letting go of your rifle and getting out a LRF.

helotaxi

March 8, 2012, 08:04 AM

You can't have your cake and eat it two. Decide if you want a red dot or a scope. As mentioned above the only way to get both is a scope mounted normally with a range finding reticule and a mini red-dot mounted at the 1 o'clock.

benzy2

March 8, 2012, 01:59 PM

Seeing which bracket or stadia line in your reticle is closest to the target's width is a lot quicker than letting go of your rifle and getting out a LRF.

Maybe. If you're targets are a known dimension (paper/steel silhouettes facing you) you may be correct. If you are shooting at variable sized targets that don't present an angle you can judge well along with low magnification it may be a bit more of a struggle to judge accurately enough for a clean shot.

Look at all of the ranging threads on this an other forums. Everyone guesses a different number and quite often people are a ways off. The pictures in those threads typically have a magnification of 10-20x which makes it easier to accurately judge size. Add that a flip up magnifier may have 3-4x magnification and I just don't get the point.

henschman

March 8, 2012, 02:49 PM

I wasn't really looking for a debate on the merits of ranging man-sized targets using stadia line reticles... I have a lot of experience with an ACOG using this ranging method, and in my opinion (and that of many others which I value highly), it works great. I was really just wondering if you guys know of anyone making a magnifier with any kind of useful reticle.

Z-Michigan

March 8, 2012, 02:56 PM

I was really just wondering if you guys know of anyone making a magnifier with any kind of useful reticle.

And the short answer is no. I don't see any reason it wouldn't be technically possible though. I suppose there could be some market for it. Might contact some of the companies currently making them and suggest it. I doubt anything would be on the market in less than 1-2 years from such a contact, and then only if they went wild over the idea.

browningguy

March 8, 2012, 03:17 PM

It's not exactly what you are looking for but I am starting to love the Burris 332. For close quarters it has a large circle outside the dot, and it has holdover marks to 600 yards for the .223. One other great thing is even when you lose battery power you still have the retical in black.

We used this at a 3 gun shoot a couple of weeks ago and it was dead on out to 300 yards using both 52 gr. and 68 gr. Black Hills Match HP's. Sure, you can spend a whole lot more money on a setup but you would be hard pressed to find anything that works better.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v11/jcm9371/Rifles/RRAATHUPPER1.jpg

amprecon

March 11, 2012, 01:16 PM

I went with a Leupold VX-3 1.5-5x20mm illuminated dot-in-circle scope. IMO it combines the quick shot ability on 1.5x and ability to zoom in to 5x for distance shots. The dot-in-circle is more intuitive for me to use. The reticle is visible when the illumination is turned off.

I'm awaiting the VX-6 1-6x24mm to arrive, I ordered it with the same reticle, but it is truly 1x at the bottom end and 6x at the top end.

http://i860.photobucket.com/albums/ab167/amprecon/018.jpg

http://i860.photobucket.com/albums/ab167/amprecon/027.jpg

GRAPE-DRANK

March 11, 2012, 01:23 PM

The Zeiss compact point has 1.05 x magnification. Not much, and I'm sure that's not at all what you're looking for. I love mine. It's on a pistol, but I would put it on a rifle. I doubt anyone would put these on their black rifles, although I think it would be awesome on a SBR 9mm AR-type.

Here is a link to the specs. This is a precision made optical, not a battle sight.

amprecon, that is one cool looking rifle. I like the no frills, but functional look. It's refreshing to see a black rifle without too many doo dads.

Who made the strap that's on the rifle? Who made the rifle?

amprecon

March 11, 2012, 03:56 PM

Thanks G-D, the sling is a 3-point I bought from Rock River Arms.
The Rifle is a Standard Length Rock River Arms LAR-8 A4.
The only mod I did to it was remove the front gas block sight base and installed RRA's folding front sight. It has a rail on the under-side of the sight, perfect place for a light without all the quad railing handguards.
I am a K.I.S.S. person.

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